Does anyone else find this Pussycat Dolls/Heinekien "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" song reminding them of the one and only Sir Mix-a-Lot? Because I for one certainly remember the chorus "Don't you wish your boyfriend was swaas like me?"

One hopes that in amongst whatever else he's got in his Funky Pad, Mix has some royalties coming in from this.

Protecting a competitive marketplace:

When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone’s permission. The new application rolled out over the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and many people still work very hard still, to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform... The Internet is increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding us. The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy.

He did really, in fact, design the web. So listen up.

I'd go a step further and posit that in the 21st Century, the 1st Amendment would be (to use a phalocentric term) castrated without Network Neutrality.

What do I mean? Well, think about it: we don't need a right to speech because it makes us feel good to speak our minds. We need the right to speech becuase puts power in the hands of citizens. It's not just about preventing thought police, it's about letting people freely communicate, organize and assemble, all of which help balance power between human beings and institutions.

Currently, a narrow definition of the "right to speak" means you're free to be a crackpot on the street corner, or perhaps to protest in a "free speech cage zone," or to chat with your friends in person, or (if you've got the dough) spend your money to create a media outlet and/or contribute to a politician's re-election fund.

That's not a very empowering paradigm for citizens.

Lately that's been changing, and the effects are good overall, I think. The trends, at the very least, are encouraging. However, without Network Neutrality, we all fork over our right to communication online -- the most empowering type of speech -- to the whims of Verizon.

Not a good idea.

Frank Robbins: "Cross-Trainer Season"

Every year around this time, when the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, more and more people get on their bikes and ride around New York. Of them, there is a special subset who try to race me, they are the cross-trainters. The cross-trainers are the guys who have spent the winter in gyms lifting weights, running in place and sweating their asses off racing one another in spinning classes...

They usually have enourmous arms, great tans and expensive bikes. One of these guys will see me in traffic, they'll chase me with a huge burst of energy sprint and will whizz past me. Then I'll follow them for about a block just to see if they have any technique whatsoever. Then I'll pass them.

It's true, biking in the city isn't just about brawn. Yes, you need to be in decent shape and the practice is a good form of physical conditioning, but it's more than that. It's a kenesthetic exercise which requires tracking an environment with thousands of moving parts, and being able to maintain situational awareness while making quick calculations and decisions.

It requires reflexes, intelligence, experience, and more. It is a kind of seeing, a real gestalt.

The Grey Lady Gets it Right:

One of the Internet's great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate.

Another issue aside from the "extortion problem" is that the Telcos want to sell their own rich-media services, and using the massively developed and adopted infrastructure known as "internet" makes that really easy. Except it only works (at a profit) if they're allowed to make their service some kind of special gated community, which means breaking network neutrality.

The new telco conglomorates and cable services see a future where you're "data services" include HDTV on-demand, traditional "internet", and e-commerce all through some AOL or Prodigy-like vertical silo. Which would be suxxomatic.

Action items here.